7.1.5 PTR Notes

[Pyrominator]

I'm really sad about this changes. I hope they give us back something like buff pyro,fireball dmg or i don't know. I'm playing fire since Cata ( where was the best in my opinion) i hate the other two specs. No ice block, no ice floes....that ice block save on some bosses the entire raid. I don't want to be forced to play arcane or frost.But if this specs will be much better than fire,than my guild will ask to change spec

About the legendaries. I have the neck and Koralon. With some talent change and the new shield + neck leg. change i will be a Survival Mage. Koralon's change seems to be better...did dmg 2-3 mil. on average...that is shit compared to the dragons breath leg. what on fights like Ilgynoth or Helya do 20+ mil. dmg.

[Eyliria]

I don't share the view of people that Fire is going to be dead with these changes.

Honestly, we should be all looking at these as the FIRST PASS of 7.1.5, and honestly, look at it from what it seems like. A mechanics pass.

Fire mages currently have extremelly high peaks of damage, followed by a giant valley until the next peak, and so forth and so forth... this causes issues, specifically on shorter-lived fights, and I'll eat flak for pointing out M+, but, it is something they take into account, since it's a legit avenue for gearing for many people.

This pass is the first step in changing this. If our peaks are lowered and our valleys brought up, we would still average out the same way. Now, whether or not we were in a good place to begin with, single-target wise, is not my point here. Again, I don't think we should be focusing on numbers yet, we should be looking at the mechanics.

Flame On adding a third charge and reducing the cooldown by a flat 3 seconds is actually fantastic if you have low levels of crit still. You hardly ever miss a pyro opportunity - the rotation feels a lot better in terms of fluidity.

Alextrasza's Wrath is incorrectly marked at 45sec cooldown. It has no cooldown, it is a passive. One thing to note is that the number of targets that you hit is irrelevant - you always only gain 1 stack of Heating Up.

The removal of Ice floes feels like a missile to the d*ck, because it is - however, we hardly ever scorched anymore, because between our instacasts and ice floes, there was almost always no need to cast scorch, EVER. They could either remove scorch altogether (For being useless), or they can try and make it part of our toolkit again. It hits for incredibly useless amounts of damage, but, until now, this could fly under the radar because of how rarely it got used - with this change, it's highly likely we will see scorched buffed in a following pass.

The combustion nerf was really rough - no way around it, it's just a massive nerf to not only the single-target aspect, but more importantly to the cleave aspect - which, speaking of, the buff to Flame Patch was quite significant - it is very strong for sustained aoe, giving us good differentiation between living bomb (for short lived adds) and Flame patch, for longer living targets.

Another thing that needs to be said is that nerfing combustion reduces the overall value of Kindling compared to cinderstorm and meteor - meteor, which, btw, was buffed a little, and is now roughly 20k dps single target for me (average hit of 900k, factoring in crits and stacks of the artifact trait averaged out).


As far as secondary stats go, I noticed that the amount of crit rating for 1% crit is increased (they devalued crit), but, I also have 10% more crit rating than I do on live (due to the new critical mass). Overall, I went from 65% crit to 63%. The curious thing, however, is that this so far has done nothing to remedy our crit reliance, because, we gain 0 crit from other sources right now. Removing my Norgannon's Boots (which has 0 crit rating), has zero impact on my crit rating. The wording of critical mass "you gain 10% more critical strike rating from all sources" would suggest that there would be other sources, but, so far, this seems to be only critical strike rating from gear/gems/enchants. It would be nice if we got a nominal amount of crit from other secondaries, or, from intellect itself... this way big ilvl upgrades would not feel like not upgrades at all - and right now, they still would feel exactly the same.

IF things were to go live like this, the spec would be dead, no question about it. But I think that it is way too early for us to think that, there is no way we don't get a numbers pass on our abilities after these changes, but, I think, we will be a better class in the end.

Coefficients are easy to fix, so I wouldn't give the overall numbers result a whole lot of worrying right now. By all means, we should be posting on the official boards and being constructive about it on the PTR - BUT, I urge you to take a look at the class mechanically, because it does feel better.

Then again... they said Fire mages were too much on the strong side... to which I have no answer, because we clearly weren't the best choice for any fight as it already was... and we are only really powerful for M+ due to the nature of the fights there that tend to be much shorter than raid bosses, as well as the tons of cleaving.

[Yelloweyedemon]

I won't complain much about these changes until I see what makes it to live and what does not. Some things make absolutely no sense whatsoever. I was expecting Koralon's to be buffed by a significant amount due to scorch being clunky and not synergy'ing with basic fire abilities. Yes they proceed and make it absolutely useless. They are nerfing the bracers because they said they want balance across legendaries, yet they add those new hands which is an obvious must for fire mages.

Fire was also all about bursty windows, yet they suddenly decide that the burst should be lowered in the middle of an expansion that is extremely alt or spec unfriendly. While they don't add anything up to compensate for the flat number loss. -.-

I'll see how things are when this goes live, but I won't play this over-nerf / over-buff thing. It is the most unprofessional thing you can do as a developer. It is not healthy for the game.

I really hate FotM focused games and this is why all MOBAS seem so terrible for me. It is why I also quit another blizzard game (overwatch). One month a hero is god-like, the next completely useless. No middle ground. And now they seem to be doing the same in an MMO that requires time-investment.

[Stauros]

Where are the comments about ice block being removed coming from? I saw that cold snap went away.

[Bucky]

I don't share the view of people that Fire is going to be dead with these changes.

This pass is the first step in changing this. If our peaks are lowered and our valleys brought up, we would still average out the same way.

The problem here is that this statement is a big IF. And currently from what we are seeing on the PTR (knowning that it is a first pass on the PTR) is that we don't see our DPS valleys being brought up.

We do see indications that scorch is being forced upon us more: removal of Ice floes, Frenetic Speed talent that increases speed via scorch on top of artifact talent, Scorched Earth, change in legendary belt

But is it really enough to boost our valleys? You specify that we shouldn't be worried about numbers (since tuning hasn't even really started), but mechanically the Combustion Burn phase is being altered substantially which I think warrants the concern that many mages have.

Flame On - the rotation feels a lot better in terms of fluidity.

Two things here. First, I don't know any competitive fire mage running at low levels of crit. Second, if flame on is intended to shift us away from crit stacking, then the next attribute that we shift over to is haste (to shorten CDs and further reduce recharge times). The problem is how much haste will it take to reach a "competitive" level as we devalue crit. Furthermore, is that a playstyle that fire mages find enjoyable?

Alextrasza's Wrath - you always only gain 1 stack of Heating Up.

Which without the legendary helm means that we've got to put ourselves in melee range if we want to use DB as a means of HU in our combustion rotation. I could see this working for some bosses but not others. It still is so situational that I still can't see it as competitive to 7.1.5 Flame On.

Then again... they said Fire mages were too much on the strong side...

True but devs also were adamant that they wanted to bring up other specs to a few % points of Fire instead of chopping Fire down. While the changes to AoE are increased (Meteor, Flame Patch), the mechanical changes of Fire seem to indicate a much stronger nerf that Devs seem to have "backtracked" a bit on.

Two last points worth considering:
Currently, there are very few fights that we've seen where large amounts of AoE are really needed from Fire Mages. Helya's adds in Phase 2/3. Assuming that Firestrike isn't worth casting till at least 7+ targets, we'll need to take a look at how fights are like in Nighthold to see if the AoE changes are worth the loss of ST for Fire.

Second point is to not forget about the T19 set bonuses which might offset some of the "nerfs".

[Darkwraith01]

Last time I heard Blizz say "wel'll balance things out along the way", I saw Fire Mages go from top dps im MoP to shit, thanks to the combustion and critical mass nerfs (once again, these two... always these two). It took over one year for fire to go back up again, not until SoO, and only in cleave fights, since Arcane took the lead after the nerf and never really backed down.

I have been playing WoW for about 9 years now (I know, some of you have been playing for longer), but I don't think 9 years is something to throw away. Over the course of time, I have learned NOT to trust Blizz class balance: we keep out hopes up, we ask for more, and we rarely ever get it. Once a class/spec is broken, it takes months, 6+ months at least, to fix it (when that happens), and by then you have either rerolled or left the game.

[Eyliria]

I'll be obviously concerned if time goes on and we don't start seeing changes to the numbers/coefficients on mage spells, hands down.

It's just that I find that a lot of the posts regarding the spec being dead, time to start saving AP for Frost/Arcane, etc, are a bit too reactionary and doomy/gloomy.

I'll be shocked if we don't see some changes to coefficients soon.

In regards to flamestrike needing 7+ targets to be useful, I don't recall the math top off my head, but I do know that if you have flame patch (current iteration), that number drops to either 3 or 4 targets. I suspect that the new flame patch from 7.1.5 would drop solidify it at 3 targets, assuming they live for the 8 seconds afterwards.

The tidbit about Alextrasza's Wrath was in response to someone that said it devalued Dragon's Breath by doubling up the cooldown - and I fully agree with your point about Flame On and competitively geared mages, however, tuning/balance needs to hold at all levels of gear, so, it would be a fantastic talent for lower ilvl mages as well.

I'm not a fan of changing up class design/playstyle midexpac, and this is very close to what they are doing, if that's indeed what they are doing (shaving the peaks and bumping up the valleys). I also don't think they'll be able to get away from a super crit oriented playstyle, because of things like our artifact trait for extra critical strike damage. I still think not all the changes to secondary stats are in.

I also realize there are many IFs on my previous post, but I feel that at this point, that is fine, since 7.1.5 probably doesn't come out until either after nighthold, or right before it, so we have a couple months of testing and tuning to see where the cards are going to fall. I can try digging up the post/interview, but I'm fairly sure blizzard stated that this patch on the PTR right now is already missing other stuff they've changed internally, which would go up on a following build.

[Dacien]

If they are moving to smooth out fire damage, as opposed to the burst play style, I'm not so sure that that is a good direction. The burst timings added hight to the skill ceiling. What's the argument for making the spec smoother? Powerful Mythic + performance? If so, that's a shame raiding got cut down for performance in another area of the game.

Otherwise, I don't see a compelling reason why burst timing was a problem that needed fixing.

[isaac2314]

Personally, I have two great concerns:

The first is very simple and short - we're not seeming our coefficient upgrades yet. I mean, yes, it's for a less bursty rotation and it will come, but it hasn't come. Until it does we should remind everyone that it, indeed, hasn't.

The second is about Icy Floes. I don't honestly think Scorch is going to work as a replacement. Icy Floes allows you to do uninterrupted DPS once in a while. Since most of the time we'd also just need to move once in a while, that's perfect. Scorch is meant to be a weaker alternative - you can always Scorch, but it's always weaker. Replacing IF with Scorch, in the current raiding system with its once-in-a-while movements (I'll admit, I only ever enter current raids while being carried, so I'm not sure if that system is still dominant), is a nerf. They might change the movement requirement to slight but constant rather than sharp but rare, although it's dubious.

Alternatively, they can restrict Scorch to 3 charges, 15s recharge, same coefficient as Fireball. Obviously, that will piss off everyone with bracers, and make everyone else wonder if they pay their developers anything at all, such is the quality of their work.



PS: reminded by another post in this thread - I understand that less bursty is better for Mythic+ and elsewhere, but it is better sometimes too. I don't care enough about it to ask for changes, but I think there IS something to be said about a bursty spec. Of course, I also don't enter Mythic+ unless carried, so.

[Rikx]

There was talk of Flame Patch + Meteor being single target dps increases. Could be an interesting avenue of research.

[lowska]

Flame patch doesn't apply to meteor, afaik. If it's only on flamestrike, this seems awful. Having to flamestrike every 8 seconds instead of pyro.

[infero91]

Flame patch doesn't apply to meteor, afaik. If it's only on flamestrike, this seems awful. Having to flamestrike every 8 seconds instead of pyro.

What he meant to say is - the nerfs to our single target are so bad that its a dps increase to take meteor / flame patch over UM / Kindling. (ON THE PTR)


Its really sad.

[EbullientPrism]

I'll be obviously concerned if time goes on and we don't start seeing changes to the numbers/coefficients on mage spells, hands down.

It's just that I find that a lot of the posts regarding the spec being dead, time to start saving AP for Frost/Arcane, etc, are a bit too reactionary and doomy/gloomy.

I'll be shocked if we don't see some changes to coefficients soon.

In regards to flamestrike needing 7+ targets to be useful, I don't recall the math top off my head, but I do know that if you have flame patch (current iteration), that number drops to either 3 or 4 targets. I suspect that the new flame patch from 7.1.5 would drop solidify it at 3 targets, assuming they live for the 8 seconds afterwards.

The tidbit about Alextrasza's Wrath was in response to someone that said it devalued Dragon's Breath by doubling up the cooldown - and I fully agree with your point about Flame On and competitively geared mages, however, tuning/balance needs to hold at all levels of gear, so, it would be a fantastic talent for lower ilvl mages as well.

I'm not a fan of changing up class design/playstyle midexpac, and this is very close to what they are doing, if that's indeed what they are doing (shaving the peaks and bumping up the valleys). I also don't think they'll be able to get away from a super crit oriented playstyle, because of things like our artifact trait for extra critical strike damage. I still think not all the changes to secondary stats are in.

I also realize there are many IFs on my previous post, but I feel that at this point, that is fine, since 7.1.5 probably doesn't come out until either after nighthold, or right before it, so we have a couple months of testing and tuning to see where the cards are going to fall. I can try digging up the post/interview, but I'm fairly sure blizzard stated that this patch on the PTR right now is already missing other stuff they've changed internally, which would go up on a following build.

What is wrong with a crit-heavy playstyle? All I can think of is sustaining that going into further patches in the xpac. Because by ToS we might be close to 100% crit, which shouldn't happen. But, other than that, I don't see a problem with stacking crit. It gives fire a unique playstyle.

[kaywiz]

Does aftershocks reapply flame patch to the ground?

Ultimately, my biggest concern for fire is now mobility with the loss of ice floes. The numbers on everything else can always be tweaked but a core mechanic like that will make mobile fights very difficult now. Does anyone know what the uptime is like on the legendary boots mobility proc?

[Sosaria]

Flamestrike should NEVER EVER be part of a single target rotation even with Flamepatch. Why? Because of the targeting circle.

You can't expect mages to do mechanics at the same time as manually moving the targeting circle to bosses when they're also using the right mouse button for camera movement.

The problem I have with the PTR build is that Blizzard is not giving us a good impression AT ALL on the new "mechanic" changes. If they wanted to shake the mechanics up, that's fine, but for God's sake give us the big numbers so we're actually excited about the changes... not dreading them to the point where I'm looking into switching to Arcane.

It's a double shot for Fire mages as after the new changes kick into live, we still have to go through the secondary stats balance (WTF happens to our crit?)

[arcenia]

Well let's hope for good tuning then!

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/status/7 ... 4309961730

"Reminder: 7.1.5 includes many *many* talent changes, and some core class changes. This is just the first PTR. Performance tuning isn't done!"

And there is a blue post here. I do want to hear what you think about it though.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/7843 ... e-changes/

[Syana]

I was messing around with replacing Pyroblast with Flamestrike+Flame Patch on ST with the exception of our combustion and decided to sim it with the latest nightly.



Even if no further changes where made to the PTR, which I highly doubt, this would be extremely situational. And I merely wanted to get a visual representation of how broken our ST damage is in the current PTR iteration.

[Solidpat]

I was messing around with replacing Pyroblast with Flamestrike+Flame Patch on ST with the exception of our combustion and decided to sim it with the latest nightly.



Even if no further changes where made to the PTR, which I highly doubt, this would be extremely situational. And I merely wanted to get a visual representation of how broken our ST damage is in the current PTR iteration.

Can you link your current ST sims in Live for us to compare please. Thx!

[Eyliria]

Well let's hope for good tuning then!

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/status/7 ... 4309961730

"Reminder: 7.1.5 includes many *many* talent changes, and some core class changes. This is just the first PTR. Performance tuning isn't done!"

And there is a blue post here. I do want to hear what you think about it though.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/7843 ... e-changes/

The worrying part of all those blue responses was the part where it said that they feel that the cries of "Fire is dead" are largely exagerated based on the current changes.

I don't even know where to start with that.

[Sosaria]

The worrying part of all those blue responses was the part where it said that they feel that the cries of "Fire is dead" are largely exagerated based on the current changes.

It basically means - yes there is a nerf, but it won't be as big. But a nerf, yes.